Being sick and other revelations

I can't remember what I used to write as blog posts, possibly pithy phrases about something starting with 'P' (how Pentecostal youth pastor of me), but probably not. I'm sick, so I thought I'd write a blog post and see if I can start a new habit of actually using my blog. This means I'll have to find things of worth to write about, as opposed to writing meaningless, indulgent poetry when I'm tipsy - drats! Real work! :P

So, where to start? I'm not sure, so I'm going to list things I've enjoyed or discovered or whatever in the last wee while.

Places to get a good hot chocolate or mocha:

• The chocolate shop in Parnell (forgotten the name, sorry!).
• The Chocolate Lounge at Riccarton Mall. Real chocolate with chilli, yum!
• Toast, in Sol Square. Haven't tried their hot chocs, but the mochas are absolutely fantastic. They give you a glass of milk and coffee, and a shot glass full of chocolate bits on the side. The plate that accompanies the glasses is drizzled with white chocolate pieces and chocolate sprats. So. GOOD. You can get quite absorbed in the ritual of tipping or spooning the chocolate in, then stirring it, then tipping, then... yeah, I'm addicted.

Comedic gold I've been introduced to or discovered:

• The Lonely Island
  
• Flanders and Swann. Turns out the song my history high school teacher played to our 6th form class as an example of xenophobia was actually one of their parodies. She must have loved the expressions on our faces - we were horrified and offended and thought it was a sincere song! I wish I could find her and give her a hug for that alone (she was a brilliant teacher anyway, this just adds that little bit extra).
  
• Surviving the World 
• Twilight. The writing is so bad it's actually good. I laughed in places I'm pretty sure were meant to be romantic or atmospheric or scary. Seriously, though: vampires that sparkle in the sun and gush sweet nothings like mindless fanboys? It deserves to be laughed at.
• The Chaser's War: Public Service Announcement.
• Scared Scriptless. I went for the first time ever about a month or so ago and absolutely loved it. Can't think why I never went before, but I'm definitely going back.
• I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten, so here's a bullet point to commemorate them.

Well, there went my brief burst of energy. If you know of any other places that do great hot chocolates (or comedy, for that matter), feel free to comment. Oooh, and if you think there's anything I should write a post about, leave a comment. At the very least, it means my blog will be slightly less dormant (although I'm not sure that's a good thing).

A little distance; a little wine

It's been 9 months

so I'm sure you'll understand that I'm nervous

about our meeting again

walking in, the first wine is free

gleeful recognitions; sporadic catch-ups

brownian motions from squab to table to couch to standing cluster

suddenly i remember your name

and how to talk shop

there is a moment

and we count:

half ex, half current

yet we're all here for this

at an evening's notice diverse strands

become a black humoured-crew

Council psych unit ITO tertiary training management:

we're all a hell of a lot better off

doing what we wanted

being paid for our skills

and everywhere the sense of festivity

camaraderie 

now the swearing, now the stories, now the honesty 

comes out

away from Them,

the hench-like controls

and petty snipes

with vaguely veiled mass emails

we are now gloriously rejoicing; now sympathetic support group

once we nodded or greeted in the halls

huddled, if we could, for spare moments of sanity

now we hug and kiss hello

real affection

assurances your new life is better

and the promise of email exchanges

you can't circle the drain so close

when

fraternity holds you together

so I leave, wine hugs promises later

buoyed up and sated

remembering the comfy smell of smokes

saunter home in a fast food haze and realise

I've left a kind of love, but

I've gained a kind of confidence

on the curb i say "thank you!" three times to 

no one in particular

in my drunkenness I think

I can do this life thing

and the person I've become is ok

almost valuable, in a way

I love how these reunions

force us to remember

fuck it's good to be alive

A little bit of M & B

Recently I've started going to a writer's group, and our last assignment was to write 500 words of Mills and Boon. Ever the geek, I got an M&B out of the library for research: I was curious to see if I could figure out the conventions and play it straight when I wrote it. (Yeah I know that sounds like the worst excuse ever.) 

Turns out it's practically impossible to read through an entire book without vomiting, rolling your eyes or shouting "What? But that's impossible! How did the Greek billionaire sheik get from Brunei to England in 2 hours?" Truly a special genre. Anyway, without further ado:

The Island Chief's Innocent Virgin

Months later, as she caught the tube to the office, it was hard to believe she’d ever been to the lush, balmy, island paradise of Rarotonga. The cold, rainy city seemed to close in around her like a cage, making a mockery of her memories of the tropical sun, the golden sand and the magical, passionate time she’d spent with Tane. Suzanna Sullivan sighed as she looked around her at the bored, bland faces of the other commuters. They seemed pale and lifeless in comparison to Tane’s tanned, muscular body; his raw, masculine energy and his exotic tattoos.

But the holiday was over now, and the realisation that she would never see him again made her feel as if she had been struck a physical blow. What hope did she, a mere personal assistant for Goliath & Sons Law, have of being with Tane Te Hurunui, the next in line to the chief of Rarotonga?

As the train pulled to a stop and she walked through the station, she resolved to plunge into her job with as much skill and enthusiasm as Tane had plunged into her during their steamy encounters. She turned her coat collar up against the wind and stopped in at her bosses’ favourite cafe, remembering to order their flat whites and short blacks just the way they liked them. After all, she smiled to herself, she may be heartbroken but she was still a professional. And hadn’t her friend Sophie in Accounts told her they were thinking of promoting her after her hard work on the Fabrouzi case?

As she switched on the computer and checked her phone messages, she found herself irresistibly drawn to the doorway. “Tane!” She exclaimed, jumping up with surprise, “What are you doing here?” It was all she could do not to run to him and wrap her arms around him. The scent of him was unbearably tantalising; coconut oil and warm skin.

“My father died a week ago, and Goliath & Sons are our lawyers. After the funeral I came here as soon as I could to organise the succession,” he said, his deep, husky voice breaking with sorrow. “Since you worked here, I hoped to see you again.” As she looked into his warm, brown eyes, Suzanne noticed herself melting and blushed furiously.

Stunned, she stammered “Tane, I’m so sorry,” as her boss arrived. Determined not to lose her head, she explained Tane’s presence, her hands shaking with hidden emotion as she handed her boss his coffee. 

“Thank you Suzanne”, he replied solemnly. “Mr Te Hurunui, I offer you and your country my sincerest apologies on behalf of the firm. Your father was a great man.”

The meeting seemed to last forever, and Suzanne could barely pay attention to her work, knowing such untamed greatness was in the next room. At last he appeared, and Don directed Tane to discuss some administrative issues with Suzanne, leaving them alone. Their eyes met, and without a word he reached for her and pulled her close to him. She kissed him tenderly at first, and then hungrily on the lips, his hands massaging her and unbuttoning her blouse as she directed them to an empty office across the hall. Suddenly she felt a torrent of passion and the floodgates opened...

Edit: Forgot to mention! One of the other writing group members did a spectacular parody. It involves Somali pirates and chainsaw bayonets. 

I have a Mac Mini

It's pretty exciting. I am using Safari, which makes every familiar website look a little odd (Facebook looks an awful lot better), and iTunes, which is fantastic because I haven't listened to my music for about a month now and I'm just realising how much I've missed it. 

This week I have also managed to acquire:

• my bike! It is all fixed and lovely. I've really missed being able to bike to work, weird as that sounds. The Church Corner guys did a great job (shameless plug).
• a functioning heater that makes my room bearable (or warm if I'm being indulgent).
• a soft-toy of the Cookie Time monster/mascot. It is red and sparkly and AWESOME. I'm a bit of a soft-toy fan, and I've wanted one of these since I was about 4, because they're spectacularly weird and cute. When I was a kid they didn't make a soft-toy of the mascot: childhood-me was extremely disappointed. This week someone at work was selling it for peanuts. Woop!
• a yak scarf. By which I mean a scarf made from yak wool and lamb's wool, rather than a scarf that is for a yak. It's reddy-yellowy yum and incredibly soft and made by exiled Tibetans living in Nepal and surprisingly affordable (and that's about as many "ands" as I should ever use in one continuous sentence).
• a pendant made from an old-school wooden Scrabble tile. 

Pictures will be forthcoming once I've found a spare USB port on my compy (I suspect it will require a USB hub).

Almost Queen's birthday

Whiskey:
There's at least one cute guy who
talks a little dirty
but recalls enough literature and history to make me
think

and as he refills my cup
I become tipsy enough to realise when I get home that
I've left an earring behind
I took it out when they noticed it was unusual
and wanted to examine how many volts or watts it was
the red one, so must be five?
No, one?
Huh, that's unusual

but just sober enough
to talk beer on the way home
emerson's and such
he's a bookbinder fan
I'm more of a pilsner girl
but
i explain about the twisted hop anyway
...just in case

damn
prolly hitched and also
not from here
a little sporadic with the attention
in a whiskey way we got on
(laaaaadies)

but for all that,
even if we didn't?

was a damn good night
(thanks all.)

And happy

I been hibernating

Cos I haven't had much of interest to say and my compy is in my cold, cold room. I realise I am practically the only person alive who still owns a desktop, (and thus am chained to the chilly regions of an unheated room when the warm, sunny climes of Heat Pump in Lounge call seductively), but someone's got to put the "ooooo" (imagine someone shaking their head) in "retro".

It's been such a long time that I posted anything wordy on here that I think I might have actually forgotten how to write. What does one put on a blog these days, anyway? Suggestions for posts are welcome.

I might take this time and space to relate a story of stupidity. I might even give it a moral, just for the edification (yup that's a real word) of all you crazy kids out there. It involves bikes and slippery grass.

The other day I was biking to work and running slightly late. I went through Hagley park, (the sporty bit, not the bit most people bike through), since it's a short cut. Just as I got to the park, I noticed an old Chinese couple biking in front of me. This couple are regulars, in a way: I see them at least a few days during the week, and sometimes we nod or smile at each other. The notable things about this couple are:

1. they bike appallingly slowly. When I say slow, I mean I've seen walkers pass them. Not power walkers, just "out for a bit of a leg-stretch" walkers. Most of the time cyclists pass them, and I do too. They're the only recreational cyclists around at that time of the morning, and the rest of us are rushing to work. I think they enjoy their leisurely mornings, and why not?

2. they take up the entire path because they always ride double-file. A note that may come in handy later on: they never pull over to let people pass. Ever.

So there I was: drizzly morning, fast bike, human roadblocks, ticking watch. I did what any psyched-with-stress cyclist would do: I raced off the path and onto the grass to go around them and overtake them. Except that I didn't. The particular part of the grass I had chosen on this particular day had a slight solid edge to it. Which I didn't see until my front wheel hit it. O. Shi-

I sighed, flew over my handlebars, and went a good few metres before I thwacked into the ground on top of my bike and slid a metre or two more. (It had been raining a week solid prior to this, so there was more sliding and squelching than usual). I have a particular knack for losing consciousness whenever I fly and collide with things, so I was out for a bit. When I got up, I was sodden and sore.

The Chinese couple asked if I was OK and kindly pointed out that my chain was off. I spent the next five minutes angrily getting my numb fingers to shove the chain back on, to the background noise of the Chinese couple's advice.
"Oooh, slow! You bike too fast. Next time, slower!"
"Thanks", I mumbled, and added the lamest explanation ever: "I'm late for work". They clearly thought I was a bit weird. I mean, biking faster than a walker? Madness!
"If I biked as slow as you I'd be a corpse by the time I got anywhere", I thought. I was kind of pissed off. But at least they were nice.

It wasn't til I got back on my bike and shakily pedalled off that I realised my gears didn't work and neither did my breaks: they were full of mud and grass. My back wheel was locked up and it took nearly twice as long to get to work.

In the end, I was late to work and a bit grumpy. Fortunately I only had a few minor scrapes, although my neck and shoulders have been bloody sore ever since. One of my breaks is now functioning (hurrah!), so even though I can only go at one speed, I can also stop. This a Very Good Thing. Sadly I've lost my front light, so no more lurking I mean biking in the dark for me. (Don't worry, I'm getting my bike fixed this weekend).

So, the moral of the story? Hmmmm, how about don't overtake when the grass is wet? Or, don't overtake when there's something that'll hit the wheel? Or you know, just don't bike to work :P

Anyone want some books?

My bookcases are a little overladen so I am trying to thin the ranks by getting rid of books I won't read much. I'll probably pop in to a second-hand book shop at some stage (which is where many of them originated), but I thought I'd mention it here first in case anybody would like give them a good home. I'm well aware that some of these are slightly unusual, but it's worth a shot. They're all in good nick.

A Chaucer Glossary
Exactly what it says it is: a Middle English dictionary that's restricted to words commonly used in Chaucer's works. Got very excited when I found it in Auckland and then realised I actually had it already.

Brideshead Revisited
An Evelyn Waugh novel. Upper-class British hijinks between the world wars. It uses the word "crapulous" (go on, look it up) and features a lord in his mid-20s who carries around a teddy bear (as you do).

Classic New Zealand Short Stories
Stories written about New Zealand or by New Zealanders from approx the 1870s to the 1960s or 70s. Fascinating and cringeworthy at the same time.

Ethnic American Short Stories: Stories that Explore the Diverse Ethnic Heritages Alive in America Today
It was published in 1975, hence the slightly odd title. Some of the stories are a bit dated, but they show a fascinating snapshot of 1950s, 60s and 70s America from a variety of viewpoints.

Egil's Saga
English translation of a saga written about the Icelandic/Norwegian clans and their shenanigans. Worth it just for the character's names, and because the purported author was called Snorri Sturluson.

Eyrbyggja Saga
Yes, that's the real title. The English translation of a relatively famous Icelandic saga - it's actually small chapters that are easy to follow. What can I say, I went through a saga phase.

Jonathan Swift: A Biography
A lot of fun to read - the man was clearly a bit off his rocker. Heaps of curious information about random things like bathing practices, wigs, coffee houses, the treatment of homosexuals and political circles in the Swiftian era.

Treasure Island.
Arrrrrrrrrr. Rum! Pieces of eight! And things.